Boat builders put spar or spar urethane on top of epoxy to protect it from UV especially on cedar canoes that are glassed. I don't care for the look and depth of an epoxy finish and I don't care for the look of Tru Oil on pourous wood like Butternut, so I seal the wood with epoxy and sand the epoxy smooth and thin and top coat with Tru Oil, which I believe is really a varnish. The Tru Oil has a g
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I have applied tru oil over epoxy for over eight year and have used it on my own spinning rod seats and it holds up great. I use my main rod three times per week from may to september.
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Another option is to seal the wood with epoxy and sand it smooth down to at least 1000 grit. Then either polish it or top coat with tru oil. This gives a different lok than tru oil alone.
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It works great. It's just like using permagloss over CP. I like 840 also.
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Do any suppliers have unbored 1/2" x 1 1/4" or 1/2" x 1 1/8" cork rings? Thanks Jim
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Eric, have you used the Sage 260-3 blank? I see they have it rated for heavier lures than the Baston. I will be using the rod for trout when backpacking. I don't mind spending the money for a quality blank. Thanks
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I have an old DAM Quick Micro-lite AT reel that I bought from Rich Grabowski before DAM went bankrupt and reorganized. Today I took it apart and cleaned it up, it is a miracle it still worked. The reel is on my favorite rod a Batson Rainshadow IS600. Tomorrow I am going to take my favorite rod and reel fishing. I really don't know why the rod is my favorite or the reel for that matter, I have p
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I would like to build a light spinning rod for back packing, either 3 or 4 piece. The only blank I can find is a St. Croix 2S60LF4. Any suggestions? It will be used with 4-6 lbs. line and 1/16 to 3/8 oz jigs. Thanks
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Luis I just went to my garage and inventoried my ultra lights and my favorite 6 footer is a St. Croix 3S60ULF. This would be specially good with spinners and even small plugs. I've never used the Rainshadow 6' blanks but I have used quite a few of their 5' blanks and they are without a doubt my favorite. You would use either IS720 or IS721F (2 piece). If you e-mailed Bill Batson he would give
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Luis Ultra-light spinning rods are the main rods I build. The Batson Rainshadow blanks are my favorite. St. Croix are also very nice(a bit faster action than the Batson). Assuming you are using a small reel, I woud use Fuji Alconite guides a #20 BYAG, #10 or #12 BYAG(I usually decide on the 10) and then #6 fly guides (I think they are BLAG) for the running guides. Choose a reel seat that fit
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I used Threadmaster for the first time today and really like it rotated the rod by hand for about 1 hour and don't think I will need to rotate any longer, it has set up pretty well. I was doing translucent wraps so no color preserver was used and I did notice that it doesn't appear to wet the thread as quickly or as well as the Classic I normally use and I believe other finishes wet better than
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Purely a hobby builder for the last 25+ years. I make a few rods for myself , donate one or two to our trout unlimited chapter each year and build for a few select friends. I teach rod building to the natural resourses class at our high school. If I wanted to save money I would have been way better off buying the finished product from St. Croix or Loomis.
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Fuji FS6B plate seats Fuji BMYAG Guides down to 4 ring and Matching Tops. Graphite Tubing for making Tenn. handles. Thanks
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Several months ago several of you suggested the Forecast 6'6" 2 wt. blank lined with a 3 wt line for small stream trout. My friend just finished it and took it out yesterday and caught a 17" brown on it. He called me as soon as he got home, quite excited. Thanks to all who helped. My buddy is a pretty happy guy.
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It is true that Gudebrod 00 has a smaller diameter than A, but the twist is also different and I find it does not lay down as smooth as A does even with burnishing. This can be aproblem with very thin finishes. If I want small diameter I would rather use silk.
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I have been building ultra-light spinning rods for over 25 years, and have used about every handle configuration you can imagine. I have always liked Tennessee handles, but hated the slip rings. I don't like taping the reel on because it's a pain to change reels. On my last rod I used a Tennesse handle and taped on a small Fuji plate seat and I am sold. It's easy to get the reel on and off and I
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I have a kid doing a feather inlay in our high school rod building class. We decided to use Gudebrod #840 one part rod finish to secure the feathers and this stuff worked great. I had been using either permagloss or Flexcoat CP, but the 840 worked better than either of those. It is crystal clear right out of the bottle and sets up quickly, but you have plenty of time to flot the feathers into pos
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I am building a 9' 8 weight for salmon on the Kenia and plan to use alconites. Should I use 7's or 8's for the running guides?
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Use a layer of fiberglass strapping tape and then a layer of shrink tubing then you can get the reel off. My buddy wnats all his rods with straight cork grips and he tapes his reels on with electrical tape.
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I am running low on U-40 brush cleaner which is great stuff. I am going to get some components from a local supplier tha has Flexcoat but not U-40. Is it the same? Is there a paint store equivalent?
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Bill Epoxy works great as a primer coat on wood. I use System Three Clear Coat and put on a thin coat. After it is completely cured I sand it smooth down to 1000 grit and top coat with Tru-Oil. You get the benifit of a glass smooth surface without the thick look of epoxy. If you want a satin look skip the Tru-Oil sand your epoxy and use 0000 steel wool and maybe some rotten stone to give it a
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Thanks to everyone who replied to: A fellow teacher at our school wants to build a 6'6" to 7' 3wt fly rod. He will use it to fish small streams with 20' to 30' of line max. He wants something that won't break the bank. Med. fast or fast action. Any suggestions? If I looked on the CCS site what would Iook for? There seems to be some feeling that the 4 piece is better than the 2 piece. W
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Thanks boys. It sounds like the Forecast 6'6" 2 wt is the ticket.
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A fellow teacher at our school wants to build a 6'6" to 7' 3wt fly rod. He will use it to fish small streams with 20' to 30' of line max. He wants something that won't break the bank. Med. fast or fast action. Any suggestions? If I looked on the CCS site what would Iook for? Thanks
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Permagloss without color preserver with darken your thread and make it translucent just like epoxy does. Permagloss also contains a ton of solvent and as a result shrinks as it dries making it almost impossible to fill the guide foot tunnell on larger guides. If you want to retain the color of your thread use color preserver. I have had great results with Gudebrod #840 under permagloss. The 840 i
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4 lbs. fire line is great. Slick and strong, it is all I use and I have had no problems.
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I do this a lot. It cuts down on the weight at the tip, especially on light spinning rods. I leave enought tip so that I can do a Forhan locking wrap. If too much tip remains exposed you can sand it off. I usually use persall's gossamer silk and it looks like the tip is painted on.
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I thought about just using 840. Some of these kids will do a great job wrapping and I think 840 would be fine. Some wrwps will resemble a birds nest and I think the epoxy will help the wrap stay together. The bottom line is too many rods for our drier given our time constraints.
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The kids in our natural resources class are all making spinning rods. We have a drum drier that will hold 8 rods and a limited amount of time. The drier sits in our Ag shop which causes a lot of problems with dust, bugs and curious kids. I plan to try and finish the rods without using the drier by using a very light coat epoxy, letting it dry and top coating with Gudebrod 840. I would use permag
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Use epoxy for the first coat and take off the excess with your brush. Let it cure for at least a couple of days, a week is better and top coat wit PG. I do this and I love the look.
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